


cardigan

by booksandchocolatecake



Series: The Folklore Cycle [2]
Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Apologies, Based on a Taylor Swift Song, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Memories, Panic Attacks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-13
Updated: 2020-08-13
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:55:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25879273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/booksandchocolatecake/pseuds/booksandchocolatecake
Summary: After Adam and Ronan have a fight, Adam is left alone in Henrietta for the afternoon. He wants to distract himself, but everywhere he goes brings back memories of days and nights spent having the time of his life with Ronan.
Relationships: Ronan Lynch/Adam Parrish
Series: The Folklore Cycle [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1871839
Comments: 1
Kudos: 42





	cardigan

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by cardigan by Taylor Swift.

Adam pushed down on the accelerator with his right foot. His shitty Hondoyota made a sad little splutter. He pressed the pedal again, and the car gave a final heave before the sound of the engine faded out. Adam groaned and climbed out of the car, slamming the door angrily. Taking frustration out on physical objects was usually more Ronan’s thing, but Adam felt that it was appropriate in this situation. He’d already been having a bad afternoon, and then his car had to break down. It was barely three o’clock, and Adam was already having the worst day he’d had in weeks.

He glanced up the driveway, at the outline of The Barns only a short distance from where the Hondoyota was stranded. Adam could walk for a minute and pick up his tools to fix the car from where he’d left them in his room. After staying at The Barns for weeks on end, he’d finally picked and put his stuff in a room last month. It was pretty sparse at the moment. When Adam was at The Barns, he didn’t spend much time in his own room. 

Better still, he could borrow Ronan’s BMW. There was only one problem Adam could find with either of these solutions; they involved talking to Ronan.

The thing was, the entire reason Adam had been praying his useless car would work this one time, was because he needed to get away from Ronan and The Barns. Instead, he was stuck there for the foreseeable future. If he stood here sulking until Ronan came out to do some farm maintenance and spotted him, he couldn’t see a way he’d be able to avoid the inevitable conversation with the other boy. If only he’d remembered to put his toolkit back in the trunk. 

Memories of the fight wouldn’t stop replaying in Adam’s head. That was why he needed to get away. To leave behind Ronan Lynch and his strange life and dreaming and beautifully flawed creatures for one night. He just wanted to stop being reminded of the man he cared about most in the world and the argument that had just occurred. He could still see himself in his mind’s eye shouting as Ronan stood with his arms crossed and a stone cold expression on his face. He could recall thinking he wished that Ronan wasn’t so savagely handsome when he was furious.

Sighing, Adam kicked some gravel off the driveway in exasperation - another behavior he had probably picked up from Ronan. He promptly felt guilty and swept the pebbles back onto the road. That was why he always lost these fights, he thought, cursing himself. He could be incredibly stubborn, but he was also extremely apology-averse. He would much rather stew in his own misery than face the issue and admit that he might have been wrong.

Adam put the car keys in his jean pocket and began to walk down the gravel path into Henrietta, away from The Barns. He stared at his shoes, trying to do anything but think about the fight. He did not succeed. 

***

The day had started so well. Adam woke up in Ronan’s arms, morning sunlight streaming in from the open window. He could hear a cow mooing in the distance and a bird chirping. Unfortunately, it was not the in-the-movies, romantic kind of birdsong. It was Ronan’s raven, Chainsaw, waking Adam abruptly by squawking in his ear. The raven who, for some unknown reason, Ronan had decided would make perfect sense to have free reign of the house. Therefore allowing eagerly awaited moments like this one, when Adam found himself awoken at God-knows-when in the morning by an overly enthusiastic feathered bird. 

Adam sat up in bed, rubbing his eyes. 

“Kerah!” squawked Chainsaw, which was her name for Ronan that she shared with Opal, a fellow dream creature, who was not a raven but a child with hooves.

Chainsaw nuzzled against Ronan’s neck affectionately as he looked vaguely disgruntled. He, too, had been awoken by Chainsaw’s early morning activities. Adam tried to swat her away and she bit him. He pulled back his hand quickly, which now featured a throbbing red bite mark.

“F--k off.” snapped Ronan. (At Chainsaw, not Adam.)

Chainsaw did not f--k off.

Deciding there was no point in attempting to sleep when there was an impatient dream-raven that wouldn’t leave you and your boyfriend alone, Adam got dressed and took a granola bar out of the fridge for breakfast. As you’d expect of teen boys, neither Adam nor Ronan were particularly adept at cooking. To put it more accurately, they wouldn’t be able to successfully boil an egg to save their lives. They preferred to eat whatever was in the freezer, which was anything they’d decided looked easiest to microwave on their monthly grocery trip to Target. At least it was an upgrade from Monmouth, when Adam had once walked in on Gansey and Ronan scooping ice cream off the floor because ‘it was only there for a minute!’ At breakfast.

He finished his granola bar quickly and set to work repairing a tractor that had broken down the previous day. He never thought he’d learn so much about day-to-day farm maintenance in his life. It was still slightly bizarre to think of Ronan as a farmer. After all, they had only just graduated high school. At least, Adam had, and Ronan had dropped out a few months before the end of the year. Adam was applying to universities, without the slightest clue of what he wanted to major in, and Ronan seemed to have it all figured out. Or, as well as Ronan Lynch would ever be able to figure out his strange life. Whilst Adam waited to find out his future, he was more than happy to help his boyfriend at The Barns to take his mind off the applications that were being mailed to prospective colleges at that second.

At lunch, Ronan managed to fish enough bacon out of the bottom of a cupboard to feed both of them, and attempted to fry it. Adam wasn’t sure how old it was, but he could have sworn he saw dust that had collected on the plastic baggie they found it in. It was severely burnt by the time Ronan pulled the two pieces of bacon out of the frying pan using his hand. The majority of the bacon stuck to the pan, and Adam had to cut off half of his piece because it was so hard he couldn’t chew it. Even the edible half had been cooked so long it tasted more of charcoal than anything resembling pig meat. 

As they ate, Ronan complained about his burnt hand, but Adam pointed out that he could have used the spatula, which he swore he’d seen in a drawer somewhere. Upon a further search, the spatula could not be found. Adam stayed insistent that he’d seen it, and Ronan admitted that he had no idea what a spatula was or what one looked like. 

After lunch, Ronan was examined an object he’d dreamt a couple of days ago. Adam couldn’t decide what exactly it was. One second, it looked like it was in the shape of one object. The next, it resembled something else. It was a ball of purple wool. The colour almost seemed to swirl around the thick threads, and changed to fit whatever Adam wanted it to be. When he thought of how he probably needed to milk the cows soon, it shifted into the outline of a cow. He spent a few minutes trying to change it into various shapes using his mind. He was able to picture the animals at The Barns most clearly, as he had seen them recently, so the majority of the shapes the ball of wool made were near exact copies of them. Ronan gave it a try, and got it to resemble some crude shapes that had him on the floor laughing. 

Chainsaw put her beak in the wool and played with it until it was tangled in her feathers. Ronan tried to pull it off her and she pulled back.

“Let it go, you little shit.” Ronan glanced at Adam and smirked. “Not you.”

Adam was only a centimetre shorter than Ronan and had to regularly remind him of this, ever since Blue indignantly brought a height chart to Monmouth to prove that she wasn’t half a metre shorter than Ronan as he kept insisting.

Adam tugged the ball of wool from Chainsaw’s grip and she angrily cawed at him before flying out of the open kitchen door to find someone else to torment.

“How long will she hate me?”

Ronan cackled. “She refused to be in a room with Gansey for months after he accidentally ate one of her crackers. That bird knows how to hold a grudge.”

Adam raised an eyebrow. “Definitely not like anyone else I know.”

Ronan kissed Adam and mindlessly threw a dirty plate into the sink from the kitchen table. It joined the many other unclean dishes that had been slowly collecting in the sink for months. Ronan had a dishwasher, of course, but Adam was fairly sure that he had never bothered to learn to use it.

They kissed again, leaning against the counter as they knocked a vase off the table and a stack of plates wobbled precariously. How did it go so wrong in half an hour?

***

Adam shoved his hands into his jean pockets as he walked. He felt so empty, like all his emotions had been pulled out of him. He only felt a great sorrow in his chest. It wasn’t like he and Ronan had never fought before, but this was different. There was no one to talk to; no one to distract him. Henry, Blue and Gansey were away on their road trip for a year. The last he’d heard, they were in Brazil. Ronan was the only other person Adam was close to, and he was the cause of his distress. Adam had a vague recollection of someone else, but he thought about it for a second and pushed away the thought. Surely he’d remember another friend, considering he had so little to begin with. 

Until this moment, he’d never regretted his choice to stay away from the other teenage boys both in his trailer park and Aglionby. They had all fallen into the same category in Adam’s head; assholes. He knew he’d never get along with them - especially if they found out about his sexuality. This was Virginia, after all. Not everyone was as accepting as Gansey and Blue. At this moment, however, Adam wouldn’t mind any company. He felt so lonely. He wasn’t unused to loneliness; he’d felt it every minute of his childhood. But after spending a year with people who finally, wholly understood him, he’d almost forgotten what it was like to be truly alone in the world. Almost.

Adam looked up and saw he’d wandered into town, if it could be called that. Henrietta was not exactly a thriving metropolis. The town was devoid of Aglionby boys, which meant it was nearly empty. The students at Adam’s old high school would be busy vacationing in Barbados and Paris in their summer homes. The only people left were the teens who attended the public school, and some adults grocery shopping. 

He frantically looked around, trying to keep himself from twisting the frayed ends of his t-shirt, until his eyes fell on the local bar. He was feeling more reckless than ever before. The gaping feeling in his chest wouldn’t leave, no matter how hard he tried. There was a faint smell of smoke in the heavy summer air that made Adam want to keep moving. His palms sweated in the sticky heat, and he wiped them on his trousers. The humid weather only making him more restless, he walked up to the building with purpose in his stride. 

He looked inside. All the lights were off, and the sign on the door was flipped to read ‘Closed.’ Of course even the bar wasn’t open. No one would let Adam distract himself for one measly second in this godforsaken town. If Ronan was here, he would have scolded Adam for being blasphemous and then said something even worse. Adam sighed and reminded himself that Ronan wasn’t here. That’s why he was stuck in the centre of town in the burning heat in the first place. The temperature stifled him and brought back unwanted memories of summers spent hugging his knees to his chest in his room in the trailer. 

The only thing missing from this scene was some tumbleweed to roll along the quiet road. There was nowhere to go. It was so hot that everyone else was in their houses or gardens clutching fans close. Even the shops were closed. More than anything, Adam wished he had a cool drink. He’d become too used to The Barns, where Ronan had dreamt an efficient air conditioning system that would also fill the room with a scent of Adam’s choosing.

The sun was shining so brightly that he had to squint to look at it. The sky was perfect blue, with not a cloud in sight. Adam couldn’t help but wish that the weather would reflect his mood. Then again, he supposed, overwhelming heat was what you were signing up for if you decided to live in Henrietta, Virginia. He knew that by the time he found shelter, his skin would be heavily tanned. Hopefully, wherever he went to college’s summers were more forgiving. 

Adam halfheartedly wandered across the street and towards a bench that he had spotted under the shade of a small tree. The weather only made his mood worse. He’d think that feeling like he was going to be scorched alive would distract him from his various other problems, but it only accentuated them. The muggy heat made him uneasy and he couldn’t stop overthinking. He kept seeing Ronan’s angry face, and he only had to look around to realise how alone he was. 

Adam found himself unconsciously playing with something soft in the corner of the bench. It was only when he thought about what he was doing he quickly pulled his hand away. Any number of things could be hidden in the side of a public bench, all of them unsanitary. He wiped his hand on an old tissue in his pocket and looked closer. Gritting his teeth, he reached in and easily pulled out the object. It was crushed and dirty, and looked like someone had stuck a piece of used gum on the top, but Adam was convinced it was a black feather. One of Chainsaw’s feathers. What the hell was a feather from Ronan’s raven doing on a bench in the centre of Henrietta? 

He inspected it closer. It was recognisably one of Chainsaw’s feathers. No other bird in the world’s feathers looked like that. Despite coming from Ronan’s dreams, she was a normal bird, except for one key difference; her feathers had a slight green tint to them. It took weeks of looking at her for Adam to notice. Even Ronan hadn’t realised it, and she was his raven. It was hard to notice, but on closer inspection this feather had the same hint of green to it.

Adam wracked his brain for a time in recent memory when Ronan had come into town with Chainsaw. He generally only left The Barns to go grocery shopping, now he no longer attended school and Blue and Gansey had left for their roadtrip. When he did go shopping, he had been forced to begin leaving Chainsaw behind when buying groceries as the local grocery store stopped allowing him in with her after she knocked over a wall display of shiny earrings on a previous visit. And Ronan always brought Adam with him. 

He glanced around himself for anything that might jog his memory. His gaze landed on a street lamp at the edge of an alleyway, and the memory of a night in which Ronan and Adam got so wasted they forgot everything came back to him in a rush. It was dancing in the nighttime street and laughs shared during kisses and whispered drunken confessions. It was spinning under a dimmed streetlight and heartbeats on a high line and hands under sweatshirts. It was everything.

***

It was two days after graduation when it happened. It was the hottest day of the year, it was the second day of Adam being an official high school graduate, and it was the beginning of the best summer of Adam Parrish’s life. He had been dating Ronan Lynch for four months. He had been staying at The Barns for two. 

Perhaps it was the heat that did it. It was a violent kind of heat, the type that makes people restless and agitated, much like that of the day when this memory would come back to Adam. That sort of heat encouraged people to do things they would never usually consider. On the aftermath of a day like that, a person might wake up the next morning and not be entirely sure why they did whatever they did. 

It could have purely been the excitement from Adam finally having everything. He had a boyfriend, great friends, and a place. He had got away from his family and his trailer and according to his teachers, he had a chance of getting a scholarship to an Ivy League college. He was still high on the feeling of it all. 

Whatever it was that did it, Ronan was on edge. He would jump at the slightest sound and he had an energy to him that radiated danger. There was something savage and sly about him that day. Even more than usual. At some point, he was bound to snap. It was simply a question of when.

It was too hot to work on the farm, so Ronan and Adam were lying on a cushioned deckchair just outside the main house, under a large umbrella. Neither of them tanned easily - Ronan had grown up doing work outdoors, and Adam had just grown up outdoors, period. However, the sun was strong enough to burn even the most thick skinned, and Adam didn’t feel the desire to look like a roasted chicken, so he made sure to stay put in the shade of the umbrella.

Ronan jumped up and grinned at Adam in the fierce, wild way he did when he had a reckless idea.

“Have you ever got blackout drunk, Parrish?”

Pretty soon, Adam was on his fourth shot of tequila. He was swaying slightly, and kissed Ronan, hard. Ronan let out a loud whoop and nearly fell out of his chair. He had drunk many more shots than Adam, and was significantly wasted. Was Adam wasted? He wasn’t sure. Ronan stumbled up and began to run towards the door.

Adam pouted. “Leaving me already?” he slurred.

“Shut up and follow me, f--kweasel!” shouted Ronan, spinning in a circle by the garden gate.

“Rude!” muttered Adam indignantly, but he followed Ronan anyway.

Ronan tripped over himself to run back to Adam. He grabbed Adam’s arm and dragged him forward, stumbling on a garden gnome. He fell on his face, and pulled Adam down with him. Adam started giggling maniacally and whispered ‘sexy.’ They kissed messily for a long time before Ronan seemed to remember what he was supposed to be doing, and the fact that they were making out on top of a pile of moldy bread that he’d thrown out that morning. He grabbed Adam’s hand and, after a few failed attempts, managed to get up and stumble out of the open gate.

“What are we doing?” asked Adam, staring at the sky. It was so blue and bright and blue…

Ronan shoved him forward and his vision swam. The other boy, who seemed to have regained some common sense, forced him into the black BMW and took a large swig from a bottle of water stored in the front of the car, before handing it to him. Adam moved the bottle up and down, watching the water move, entranced.

“Get a grip, Parrish.” snapped Ronan. 

He snatched the bottle from Adam, who protested by whimpering quietly. Ronan unscrewed the lid and shoved the top of the bottle into Adam’s mouth. He tipped it back and Adam took a few gulps of water before Ronan took the bottle back. In a few seconds, Adam’s head began to clear. He could still feel the effects of the alcohol on him, but the water had helped. For the first time, Adam noticed that Chainsaw was perched on Ronan’s shoulder, cawing at him.

Ronan let out a laugh that was a little too crazy and started the engine. Adam may have been far gone, but he wasn’t stupid enough to not notice the immediate problem.

“You can’t drive.”

“Why not?”

Adam groaned. He looked out the window at the fields rolling by and nearly lost his train of thought, but managed to grasp it.

“You’re drunk.”

“I’d make a comment on how we’re all drunk on life or something, but then I’d have to be sick. Just let loose, Parrish. Let the moment take you or some shit.” Ronan proceeded to pretend to gag.

Adam sat in silence and Ronan threw him a bottle of beer that he apparently had stored in the car.

“This should help you have more fun.”

The effects of the water were beginning to wear off, and Adam giggled at the bubbles at the top of the beer. He clumsily unscrewed the lid and told a large sip. Then another sip. Then another. 

Two hours later, Adam and Ronan found themselves drinking at a bar in the centre of town. 

Ronan waved his hand around, his shoulders swaying. “So, uh, then I had to pull down this shithead cow from the top of a big tree!”

“Liar.” retorted Adam.

“No.”

“Yes.”

“No!”

“Yes!”

“No-”

“Yes-yes-yes-yes-yes-”

“No-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-”

Adam snorted loudly and they both fell into pearls of laughter. He put his head down on the table because he could barely breathe and when he looked up again, Ronan was passionately making out with him.

“Hot.” he commented and returned the kiss.

“All shitheads called Adam Parrish follow me!” exclaimed Ronan. 

Adam ran after Ronan and they stumbled out of the bar into an alleyway. It was late and the sun had set. The backstreet was pitch black, and the only light came from a lone streetlight, lighting the entire alley. The glow illuminated Ronan’s face, making him look almost like an angel. A twisted, broken angel. Adam had a sudden urge to make out with him, in the middle of this dark alley.

Adam slipped his hand under Ronan’s sweatshirt and kissed him. All Adam could think was how handsome Ronan looked in this light. They broke apart, breathless.

“Did you bring me here to murder me?”

“Believe me, if I wanted to, I already would have.”

Standing in the dim alleyway with the only light a dull streetlamp, Adam could have believed that. The stark lighting accentuated Ronan’s sharp, pale features and striking black tattoo. Chainsaw perched on his shoulder, an intimidating figure if you didn’t know her well enough. The same thing could be said about Ronan, Adam thought.

Ronan began to hum a tune to himself. He spun around under the streetlight, dancing like no one was watching. Adam wished he could be this free when he was sober. His Levi’s shone as he moved, twisting and turning like he was the only person in the world. Adam felt an aching, a longing in his heart.

“I’m in love with you, Ronan Lynch.” he whispered.

Ronan stopped dancing. Suddenly, the entire world came into focus. “What did you say, Parrish?”

Adam froze. All the drinks he’d had clouded his brain, and he was rendered speechless. “I, I- I said you smell like poo!”

Ronan burst out laughing and so did Adam. Chainsaw cawed loudly. In a minute, the alcohol wiped the moment from Adam’s memory. He had a feeling he was very lucky they were so drunk.

***

Adam rubbed his temple, sighing. Thinking about that night and how many drinks he’d had gave him a headache. He winced at the memory of what he’d nearly told Ronan. Thank God they were both extremely wasted. After all, it had taken him three weeks to remember anything about the afternoon. Ronan had much more experience with being drunk, but surely even he wouldn’t be able to recall much that occurred after he’d had his sixth shot. 

Adam tried not to linger on the feeling he remembered from the kiss in the alley. When you were young, everyone assumed you knew nothing. For the most part, that was true. Yet, in that moment, he’d felt like all the pieces of his broken, messed up life had fallen into place. Some of them were chaotically superglued together in a confused tangle, and some of them had fallen apart entirely, but somehow, in a strange and familiar way, they fit. He was very drunk by that point, he reassured himself. Adam could chalk it up to that. Definitely not Ronan. Definitely not any repressed feelings for the man who he had just had a fight with who he was literally supposed to not be thinking about because that would stupid and illogical and it totally wasn’t like he had been in love with Ronan for months and he’d only had the nerve to admit it when he was intoxicated-

Adam hated himself.

He brushed some dirt that had fallen from the feather off his vintage Coca-Cola shirt. The last time he’d worn it had been last month, on a day he wished he could forget. It had not been his proudest moment. That day, the shirt had collected many tears and regrets. Even thinking of it, he could feel the weight of his blanket as he huddled under it, his knees clutched to his chin as he rocked back and forth. He could see himself freezing in the grocery line, people behind him staring as his feet refused to move, his breath coming in short gasps. 

Adam reached into his right pocket, almost unthinkingly, and his fingers grasped around a tiny cool object. It felt refreshing against his sweaty palms and he rubbed it slowly for a minute. He drew it out and looked at it, centering his breaths as he stroked the small thing. It was a simple round metal button that could have originated from any item of clothing. Its silver paint was flecked from being handled too many times, and it was slightly dented at the side. To anyone else, it would have looked like an old fallen-off button that should have been thrown away long ago. To Adam, it was more priceless than any expensive car or new iphone. Because it came from Ronan.

***

Adam threw the cheapest bottle of mouthwash he could find into his shopping cart. His apartment was out of most essentials, and he wasn’t planning on graduating from high school in a week with stinky breath. He glanced at the shopping list he had scrawled onto a page torn from his school notebook. The Aglionby logo was still visible at the bottom of the page, as if it was taunting him. ‘Adam.’ it said. ‘You go to one of the most elite schools for rich kids in America, and you’re worrying if you can afford mint mouthwash for kids that you’re buying because it’s less expensive than the adult ones. You’re not meant to be here.’ Over the years, Adam had learnt to ignore signs like that. Messages from the world that nearly seemed to sneer at him. It wasn’t that they didn’t hurt, though.

Ignoring his inner struggle, Adam ticked the mouthwash off the list and pushed his cart towards the checkout line. He stood in the queue, internally adding up the prices of all the items he was going to purchase. He was relatively sure he could afford it all. Maybe he shouldn’t have added that box of oreos that looked so tempting from the shelf. Fifty percent off, read the bright red sign, drawing Adam in like a sailor to a siren. What if they tipped the amount due over the edge, and he had his card rejected in front of everyone? No, he reminded himself, pushing away the old fears. He’d checked his balance before he headed out. He knew he could pay for everything he was purchasing. It was the paranoid part of his head doing this, the part that still told him he wasn’t good enough for Aglionby or his friends. After all this time, he hadn’t been able to conquer it entirely.

Whilst he was doing calculations, the line had moved. Adam was standing in front of the cashier. She looked at him expectantly. He took out his wallet while she scanned his items. There was a sale on sandwiches. Should he apologise and go and grab one before the woman finished scanning his purchases? He was trying to see the exact price of an egg and cress sandwich when he stopped in his tracks. 

There was a man looking at the salad pots, his head turned away from where Adam stood. Adam’s breath caught in his throat. His feet glued themselves to the marble floor, his entire body suspended in fight-or-flight. 

“Do you want a bag with your items?” asked the cashier.

Adam found himself unable to answer.

“Sir?”

His father stood only a few metres in front of him. He tried to pick up his purchases, to run, but he was frozen. He felt dizzy and separate from everything else. Sweat trickled down his forehead, and he could feel his palms, cold and clammy. The background chatter in the shop was heightened and even though Adam knew better, it sounded like they were shouting at him. The lights on the ceiling shined a spotlight onto him, so bright he had to wince. His heart pounded in his chest. He tried with all his might not to faint onto the grocery store floor.

People in the line were starting to look and mutter, and Adam felt their disapproving stares on him. He was drawing too much attention. He was a nuisance. They hated him. They hated him. They all hated him.

“Sir, please take your items and go, you’re disrupting the line.”

The man must have noticed Adam’s staring, because he turned around. The realisation hit him in the stomach and knocked all his breath away. 

The man was not Adam’s father. 

The shape of his face, the cheekbones were all wrong. Now he thought about it, the man’s hair was a completely different shade of brown. 

“Are you all right, young man?” asked the man. He had a heavy Henrietta accent that layered his words.

Adam nearly collapsed with relief, too overwhelmed to respond. He grabbed onto the cashier’s table to steady himself, gulping in long, large breaths of air. The cool breeze from the fan in the corner of the shop buffeted his hot skin. 

“If you don’t move, I’m going to have to call security.” ordered the young cashier sharply.

Everyone was staring now. 

Adam abandoned his shopping and ran, stumbling out of the shop as quickly as he could, taking in rapid breaths as if all the air had been sucked out of his lungs. He ran and ran, even when his legs begged him to stop, until he reached his apartment. He unlocked the door, flung himself onto his bed, and sobbed into his ratty, old sheets.

It must have been three hours later when Adam heard the door swing open, creaking. It would need to be oiled soon, and Adam would have thought this, was he not lying on his bed in the middle of the afternoon, wrapped in a bundle of tear-soaked  
blankets. 

“Parrish, you ever wanted to see a flying cow?” came the loud voice. Ronan was the only person with a spare key to Adam’s apartment. Adam cursed under his breath. “Parrish?” 

Adam heard footsteps coming closer. He tried to draw himself up, but it was rather hard when he could see his reflection in the mirror, his eyes red rimmed from crying. In any other circumstance, he would have tried to look relatively put together for his boyfriend. He would at least attempt to get up from where he was slumped on his cheap, rock-hard mattress. Today, he didn’t have the energy. He felt useless, unwanted. He wanted nothing more than to crawl into a hole in the ground and never come out again.

His door opened, and Adam drew into himself at the loud noise. Ronan entered, tossing his jacket onto the rotten wooden chair that had one of its two unsteady legs balanced on an Aglionby history textbook.

“Where are you, Parrish? I thought you told me you didn’t have work today until seven.”

Ronan caught sight of Adam, curled up on the bed, and froze. Adam tried to sit up by leaning against the wall. He was a rather pitiful sight, he supposed, crying alone in his tiny, bare room. He felt a painful stab of shame go through him.

“Shit, Parrish, have you been crying?”

Adam didn’t imagine it was too hard for Ronan to put the pieces together, given his tear stained cheeks and red eyes. He desperately attempted to wipe the teardrops from his face, but he was too late.

Ronan sat next to him on the small bed. The mattress was so hard that it barely moved with the new weight.

“Don’t want to talk about it?”

Adam laughed weakly, and was hit with the realisation that he’d found someone who actually understood him.

“You’re right. I don’t.”

“Should I go?”

Adam paused. “Please don’t.”

Ronan reacted only by slowly putting his hand on top of Adam’s. Seeing that Adam didn’t flinch from the touch, he moved slightly closer. After a minute, Adam rested his head on Ronan’s shoulder. They sat like that for a lifetime, the only sounds their light breathing. Adam listened to the steady, constant beat of the other boy’s heart, his washing machine whirring in the background.

“It was my father.” said Adam quietly.

Ronan sat up abruptly. “What the f--k did that bastard do? I swear to God I’ll kill him-”

Adam held his hand up to stop Ronan. “No, I meant like- Not like that.” Adam swallowed. “I thought I saw him at the grocery store. It wasn’t him but…” Adam trailed off.

“It was enough.” finished Ronan.

Adam nodded. His eyes filled with tears and he quickly blinked them away. “It’s just… Sometimes I think… What if all I am is what he made me?” Adam took a deep breath and looked at the floor, refusing to meet Ronan’s gaze. “What if I’m just a discarded cardigan under someone’s bed?”

“Then you’re the most f--king beautiful cardigan I’ve ever seen.” 

The room was silent for a while, and Adam couldn’t stop a lone tear sliding down his cheek.

Ronan turned to look him in the eye. “Look, Adam. You don’t owe him anything. You are your own person, and I swear to God that that person is a million times better than the best part of that man.”

Adam kissed him. He tried not to show just how much that meant to him. That Ronan saw him as a person beyond what his father did to him. Sometimes, he worried that that was how everyone would remember him. The boy whose father beat him. He was eternally grateful he had someone who could always see him for what he was. Who knew him for being simple Adam Parrish, and wanted to be with him anyway.

Adam leaned back. “I don’t know what happened. I was fine and then I saw him and… it was all too much. Like someone flipped a switch in my head and the entire world was multiplied by a thousand. I couldn’t stand it. It was like when I used to lose control of my powers, but so much worse. I couldn’t breathe. And the shop was so loud.”

“You mean like a panic attack?”

Adam blinked.

“You seriously don’t know-” Ronan sighed. “Okay. Tell me how you feel now.”

“I feel all… floppy. Without energy. Like I’ve been…”

“Drained?”

Adam’s eyes widened. “How did you-”

“You had a panic attack, Adam. It’s very common. Especially among people who had shitty childhoods.”

“Oh.” 

Ronan picked up his jacket from where it was discarded on the chair and reached into the pocket.

“I was going through my mother’s clothes this morning. This fell off one of her cardigans. I was going to put it in a box with her other stuff, but I have a feeling you need it more.”

He handed Adam a round silver button. Adam rolled it between his fingers. 

“Why would I need this?”

“I know it looks like shit, but it's metal, so it’s cold. If you ever have another panic attack, you can touch it or something. It’s grounding. It might help.”

For a second, Adam was shocked someone would give him such a thoughtful gift. People always assumed Adam wanted them to buy him a good phone or pay his rent. They never understood he cared less about the price and more about the thought put into it. Then he remembered this was Ronan. Of course he’d give Adam something that he never knew he’d needed.

“Thank you. So much.”

“That’s alright, Parrish. It’s just an old button. You’ll probably forget about it in a week anyway.”

Somehow, Adam knew that he wouldn’t forget the button any time soon.

“Stay with me tonight?”

Ronan smirked. “Long as you don’t get too clingy.”

***

Adam shoved the button back into his jean pocket, a pang going through his chest. He stood up, immediately feeling his legs ache from sitting still for so long. The road was empty and he crossed it with purpose in his stride. He could barely remember what the fight had been about. Did it matter? All he was he able to think of was Ronan. He’d come here to get away from him and instead, his shadow was in everything Adam saw. 

That was the grocery store where Ronan had forced Adam into a grocery cart and shoved it in the parking lot until it tipped over and Adam fell onto the ground and they roared with laughter until people stared because they were young and high on adrenaline and had nothing to lose. That was the cafe where they sat for hours talking until they were kicked out on their heels and they headed back to The Barns and watched an old movie they found in the attic as the sun set. That was the mechanic shop Adam worked at four times a week to afford his Aglionby tuition fees and the rent on his apartment, where Ronan had given him the cream for his dry hands. It had been the first time where Adam had thought maybe, maybe what he thought he had with Ronan could be real. Months later, they’d been making out there at the end of Adam’s shift when his boss came in and they ran as fast as their legs could take them. 

So many things in Adam’s life were complicated. He had spent the last two years of his life searching for a dead Welsh king with two rich boys and a psychic. In the process, he had become a magician and traded his free will to become the hands and eyes of a magical forest. He had dealt with demons and dream-monsters and curses, and met some real-life monsters who masqueraded as human but were just as bad. He’d faced his father in court and was on the path to an Ivy League college. 

It would make sense that the love he found would be just as complicated. Ronan could take things from his head. His dreams that became reality were strange and chilling and illogical. He came from a family unlike any Adam had ever met, and he had dropped out of high school to become a farmer of extinct and non existent animals. He was dangerous and messy and nothing like the simple partner most people wanted.

Adam Parrish was not most people.

If Ronan Lynch lived for the thrill, Adam lived for the journey. He wanted to know, to experience, everything. He wouldn’t be able to stand a normal life. In the same way Gansey longed for adventure, he longed for knowledge. And not in the cheesy, college slogan, way. He had a connection to another world from his deal with Cabeswater and the weeks he’d spend with Persephone Poldma, a psychic who lived in Blue’s house before she passed away in a futile attempt to locate Blue’s mother, who was missing at the time. There was no other way to describe her but strange. To describe anyone else, this would be used in a less than complimentary way. Persephone had embraced it. Adam knew she had yearned to understand, to find, in the same way he did. 

Ronan Lynch was a complicated lover for an infinitely complicated man.

Adam’s feet had taken him to The Barns without his realising it. His heart beating at double speed, he rang the doorbell. It emitted a classical violin adaptation of the murder squash song for a few seconds, and the door opened. Ronan was standing in the doorway. Chainsaw was on his shoulder, and Adam could see Opal running around in the living room. He was carrying a dirt-covered shovel. The gate at the back of the house was open.

Ronan saw Adam and crossed his arms. 

“Parrish?”

Adam swallowed. “I’m sorry.”

Ronan was silent for a second. “Me too.”

Then he kissed him, right there, under the front porch light, and it was the most romantic moment of Adam’s life.

**Author's Note:**

> I chose not to include the fight to show how insignificant it was.
> 
> Please leave kudos if you enjoyed and leave a comment to tell me what you thought because this is my first long fic so it means so much to me!


End file.
